Diseases of Sheep, 



325 



No. 2), first washing the animal well with soft soap and warm 

 water. 



I also recommend the use of aperients^, as also bleeding from 

 the eye-vein in sheep much diseased. Two ounces of Epsom salts 

 would be a sufficient dose ; and in administering medicines inter- 

 nally some care is necessary to insure their reaching the stomach. 

 They must be swallowed slowly, not forced down, otherwise they 

 will be precipitated with such force as to open the paunch in their 

 descent, and will remain there instead of entering the stomach and 

 bowels ; for the structure of the parts is such as to admit of this 

 misdirection of the medicine. A six-ounce phial is a convenient 

 instrument for the gradual introduction of fluid medicine. 



To return from this digression. Every infected sheep should 

 be removed from the flock as soon as dressed, and until there is a 

 satisfactory proof of its convalescence. Even here, however, the 

 anxiety of the farmer is not at an end. The complaint is probably 

 more contagious than any other that can be mentioned. It has 

 often happened that, after all the stock has been sold and re- 

 placed, the new comers have been speedily infected. This is oc- 

 casioned by coming in contact with the fences against which the 

 diseased sheep have been in the habit of rubbing themselves ; the 

 wool left on the posts retaining some of the eggs or larvae of the 

 vermin, and of course communicating them to the new flock. 

 The prudent farmer should therefore cause all flakes of wool 

 remaining on the hedges to be carefully collected by his boys, and 

 he should also remove all useless posts, and paint or tar the 

 gates, or wash them with a solution of the chloride of lime, be- 

 fore he uses the same pastures again. 



Some complaints have been erroneously confounded with the 

 scab, and much inconvenience and even mischief has arisen from 

 the mistake, all the usual remedies to avoid contagion being taken 

 unnecessarily. Hard and scurfy eruptions, and some species of 

 the ticks, have been considered to be scab, and treated accordingly. 

 The shepherd will be guided in his judgment by the actions of 

 the sheep ; if he observes that the painful itching and incessant 

 rubbing are wanting, he may safely conclude that the attack is not 

 scabby in its character. In some parts of the country the scab in 

 its most virulent form is known by the name of Wildfire." It 

 becomes a species of erysipelas. 



Pelt-rot may be here mentioned, less as a specific disorder, 

 than as a frequent effect of scabby eruptions. It consists of a spon- 

 taneous falling off of the wool. It is sometimes produced by febrile 

 attacks, as often happens with the human being after severe fever. 

 In other cases I have known it to be constitutional, returnino; at 

 regular periods, and most usually once a-year. Ewes suckling 

 twins seem to be very liable to it, probably from the poverty of 



